Super Mario 63 Glossary
Words you might see around the Wiki and forums, and might not know exactly what they are talking about: Good Guys * The protagonist of the game. The story basically follows the format as Super Mario 64: Bowser locks Peach up in his castle, while Peach's Castle is abandoned and the doors have to be unlocked with Stars (here: Shine Sprites) or keys obtained after winning a Bowser battle. * Mario's brother can be unlocked in the game after collecting 32 star coins. He can jump higher and swim better, but he goes very mad after hitting a flame or lava, making him uncontrollable for a short time. * Mario's and Luigi's favourite mount. Makes a short appearance in Kamek's Castle. * Toads appear in the storyline of SM63 and the levels itself, where they can be talked to as normal NPC's. They tend to run in circles like crazy if danger is near. * The female ruler of the Mushroom Kingdom, with an unfortunate fate to be kidnapped very often by Bowser. When Mario is on his way to her castle, Bowser invades it with his airship. Bad Guys * The eternal archenemy of Mario, Peach and the Mushroom Kingdom. He has to be defeated in two battle stages in order to obtain Bowser Keys, until he's beaten for once of all within his own castle. * Bowser's magic-skilled henchman, who tells him the existence of the ancient Orb of Morph in the depths of Peach's Castle. Bowser obtains it, but goes mad from the power of it, wanting to destroy the entire world with a meteor. He also fires Kamek and bans him in the outskirts of his castle, where Mario fights Kamek to obtain a Red Shine Sprite. Later, Kamek stops the impending apocalypse by reversing Bowser's fire field, so the meteor destroys Bowser's Castle. * Bowser's weakest minions, they can be found in almost all stages. You simply kill them by jumping on them or spinning them away / diving into them. They appear in normal size and huge size, and in the Designer there also exist mini goombas, which can hurt you for glitchy reasons if you step on them. * Koopas on the ground hide in their shell when you hurt them. Then you can kick the shell to kill weak enemies. Shells float in water and stand the heat of lava; these properties can be used in the Designer for puzzle mechanics. Flying koopas aren't moving in air; they fall down if you jump / dive on them, but if you spin into them, you kick them away in their shell. * When you approach them, they make a "sssss" noise and turn red, until they explode. By attacking them, you can hurl them away and make them explode immediately. The explosion can also kill most enemies, but if you're near to it, you'll lose two powers, so watch out. * These don't make you lose powers by contact, but they give you a boost back, in order to send you from the platform they're standing on. You can push them away by spinning or ground-pounding, while Big Bullies are much more tenacious than normal ones. Both can be killed by being kicked into lava, while Big Bullies need three hits. * Normal shy-guys move slowly on the ground. You can kill them by jumping on them, but when spinning, you just push them away, unless they die from being pushed into a wall. Fly-Guys behave like flying koopas when being attacked; when you spin into them, they die from the percussion on the ground if high enough. If you jump on them, you'll automatically spin for a short time. * Goonies are a sort of seagulls that fly peacefully, and can be jumped on as a platform. Skelegoonies are, as the name says, the skeleton of a goonie, and they can hurt you. When you hurt a skelegoonie, it falls on the ground like a flying koopa does. On the ground, skelegoonies keep moving quickly, and can't be hurt by spinning. * Penguins and flying penguins aren't dangerous by themselves and can't hurt you, but they act as a weak-bounce obstacle which is tricky to be maneuvred through. Penguins can be a bit pushed away by spinning, while flying penguins are completely unpassable except if you have an Invincibility cap. This can be used for puzzles. * Thwomps are blue blocks with an evil face, and they will fall down at a uniform speed if they spot you below, aiming to crush you or push you beneath a platform. Within the designer, it's possible to customize thwomps, so they can e.g. have a fast falling speed or to never go back up after falling. Hazards * Bottomless pits / abysses will be deadly at once if you fall into them, until it's in fact a vertical transition and you appear at a lower section of the course. This exists in e.g. Bob-omb Battlefield, Hazy Maze Cave, Boo's Mansion or Tall Tall Mountain. * That extremely hot, red substance ... if you fall into it, you'll lose three powers and scream up into the air unless you're protected against it with a suited cap. Metal cap and invincibility cap let you pass through fire and lava without problems, while with an invisibility cap you don't suffer damage, yet perform the act of screaming up. * These large flames usually appear above lava, but also can be found at other places. They act like lava if you hit them, except that you lose "only" two powers instead of three. Some of them go endlessly, while others go on and off within given time frames. In the editor, you can also disable a flame tower from dealing damage, so you can have it for decoration purposes. Places * The home land of Mario, Luigi, Peach and the Toads. Two regions close to Peach's castle serve as tutorial stages (at the start and after beating Bowser for the first time), while the other courses don't belong to it. * Peach's residence serves as a hub just like in Super Mario 64, where you collect Shine Sprites in early courses to unlock the later ones. The castle also houses a special Star Room, where you can enter the Level Designer from the game itself, and also unlock special prizes by collecting more Star Coins. At the top of the castle, there is the Endless Staircase, which is unlocked with 32 Shine Sprites, and then you'll find the Sling Star which shoots Mario directly into Bowser's Castle. * The main levels of the game are accessed by paintings in the castle. Stand under a painting in the castle and press "Up" to access it. There are seven regular courses with each five Shine Sprites and six Star Coins, and three mini-courses with each three Shine Sprites and three Star Coins. * There are hidden places in the castle which give you access to a secret stage which contains exactly one Shine Sprite, and sometimes also one Star Coin. You have to keep a sharp eye to find these locations if you don't know them already. There are nine secret Shine Sprites in total. Items * The item which marks your goal in a level; you finish a level by obtaining it. Once you get it, Mario will smoothly fall down until reaching ground, and then exit the level. Within the designer, it can happen that a shine sprite pulls you into an abyss (which means death) or into lava (which means damage), in both cases you didn't win the level with this shine sprite. * Star Coins are collected in order to unlock the Star Room (with 5 star coins), and then tilesets for the designer (if you use it in-game) and special prizes. They're found in any kind of stage except the tutorials. After collecting the Star coin, you simply press "Save" or "Don't Save" and continue. * Red coin missions exist in all courses, mini-courses and Bowser stages, and also in a few secret courses. There are eight red coins spread in the level, and collecting all of them will light up a Shine Sprite (after you reach the transition where it's placed in). In the designer, there can be numbers of red coins other than 8. * 1-up mushrooms are usually found at more outlying places, and they give you an extra life (duh). In the designer, 1-ups are useless, as dying won't substract your life count and send you back into editing mode instead. * Doors exist in Peach's Castle and also in some courses as e.g. Boo's Mansion or Lethal Lava Land. Within the castle, most of them must be unlocked by gaining a certain amount of Shine Sprites or a Bowser key. In the designer, you can choose from six frames for doors, and determine their target with an extra pair of x and y coordinates. * Pipes work just as doors, but they appear very rarely in the game. Some of them have the ability of disabling the FLUDD's you've collected before. * The first FLUDD engine which already appears in the first tutorial. It gives you the ability of hovering in mid-air until the thin red bar to the left of the FLUDD symbol runs out. You have a total of 100 water units to use, and you can refill them by contact with water, collecting another FLUDD or a water bottle. * The second FLUDD, which is introduced together with Rocket FLUDD in the second tutorial. It gives you the ability of dashing very fast along the ground, killing most enemies, as well as dashing in mid-air to perform very long jumps. Within water, you can use it endlessly as it's being constantly refilled. * The third and last FLUDD engine lets you shoot up yourself very high after activation. This substracts 5 water units, and the bar only refills very slowly, so you can't use it for multiple consecutive boosts. * This cap lets you pass through fire and lava without bouncing up and taking damage, but you also won't be able to dive up in water. It also decreases your spinning abilities in mid-air, but it allows you to stomp blocks underwater. * After performing a triple-jump or a dive, you can fly forward with this cap. Navigation follows the same scheme as in Super Mario 64, so you can't rise up infinitely with it. The longer you hold it, the lesser are your flying abilities until it runs out. * This cap allows you to walk through metal cages, and it will also protect you from damage by fire and lava and it also makes you invincible against enemies, but you don't kill them by simple contact and you can also be hurt when being crushed. * This is the strongest cap, protecting you against all kind of damage; even damage from being crushed or falling from a high altitude is immediately restored. You kill almost all enemies by contact and you can also push Bullies or penguins away by simple contact. LD Terms * Tiles are the basic tool to form landscapes, ground, buildings and anything else related to the structure of a level. They're placed within a visible grid and they can't be overlapped. Be careful not to leave any unfinished edges with landscape, since that's cutoff. * Items are everything you need to spice up your level, create its gameplay and improve its visual appeal - coins, moving or solid platforms, enemies, power caps, pipes, plants, rocks, arrows and all that. * With level splitters (usually called transitions themselves), a level is split up into units called transitions. There are wide-ranged items which interact only within one and the same transition, e.g. blocks and water pools. Transitions / splitters have the main purpose of avoiding lag, because they also separate the "events" Flash is occupied with. * Grids are an expedient in design mode to control both tiling and itemization. A grid consists of 32 pixels. The total amount of grids is determined by the x-size and the y-size of the level. * The mode in which you place tiles and place / customize items, to create your level. You don't see any of the level's background in it. * By clicking "Test course" in the File menu, you test your level. This is important to see if everything works the way you want it, and if there are any bugs. There can be more inconveniences or inconsistences with your level than you think at first. You can exit Test Mode by dying or pressing Backspace.